Archive for the ‘chase scenes’ tag

Forty-five years ago today, Warner Brothers Pictures released Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen. Then, as now, the studio recognized one incontrovertible truth: If you want to put men in seats, include a good chase scene, followed by an explosion or two, in your crime drama. Bullitt’s duel, between the 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback (driven by Steve McQueen, as inspector Frank Bullitt) and the 1968 Dodge Charger R/T (driven by Bill Hickman, as evil henchman Phil), has become the stuff of legend, with homagesfilmed on a semi-regular basis, and a cult following all its own.

The film took a few liberties in the name of art, and some believe that the Charger used in the filming switches from a base model to an R/T during the chase. This likely stems from the wheel covers used on the car, which were indeed from a base model Charger; as the story goes, narrower wheels and tires were fitted to the 440-cu.in. four-speed Charger R/T to make the Mustang look faster than it really was. Also, a total of six wheel covers are lost from the Charger over the course of the chase scene, though at no time do we see the antagonists stop to reclaim and reattach a lost wheel cover.

As for the Mustang, the car used for chase scenes was reportedly a GT fastback equipped with a 390-cu.in. V-8, while a few 289-cu.in. Mustangs were dressed to look like the 390-powered version and used for other scenes. The GT’s four-speed gearbox wouldn’t have required the double-clutching heard during the chase, but the producers opted to use an engine soundtrack from a Ford GT40 for a more dramatic effect. As for the stunt driving, McQueen piloted the car for all but a few scenes about 10-percent of the scenes, with friend and Hollywood stuntman Bud Ekins taking the wheel for the early part of filming, followed by Loren Janes for the rest of production. The Charger R/T was driven entirely by stuntman Bill Hickman, who also played the role of Phil, the killer’s main minion.

We can think of no better way to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Bullitt than with its original chase scene, split into three parts for easier viewing. Break out your brown tweed sport coats, cue up the videos and enjoy.

Since November, UK resident and slot car enthusiast Emigre has been working on one heck of a project: Re-creating the chase scene from Bullitt in stop-motion with slot cars. Simple? Hardly. He’s also building from scratch almost the entire late 1960s San Francisco background scenery in 1/32 scale. He anticipates releasing the entire chase scene sometime this year.